Mechanistic Representations of the Long-Term Durability of Polymer Composite Materials

摘要

The gorwing use of composite materials in engineering componetns have crated a need for a fundamentally new philosophy to support and define the engineering concepts of druability and damage tolerance. The present paper describes such a philosophy and methodology. It will address the question of how to construct a systematic, comprehesnive approach that uses characterizations of behavior such as creep, creep rupture, and fatigue damage, and mechanistic models of strength to estimate the remaining strength and life of composite materials under long-term loading and environmental conditions that may include the effect of aggressive environemnts. Examples will be presented, using the MRLife simulation code published by the Materials Response Group at Virginia Tech.